The education reformer extraordinaire and faux superintendent of schools in Bridgeport was fond of claiming that he could turn a district around in a year. Now he is sitting with egg on his face, as the State Department of Education released the Connecticut Mastery Test Results for Bridgeport and the rest of the state today.

The CMT test results reveal that Vallas’ so called “reforms” did little to improve test scores.

In fact, the man who tried to quadruple the number of standardized tests in order to “train” student on how to increase their CMT test scores managed to come up with a system that actually appears to have lowered academic achievement as measured by the fraudulent CMT Testing system.

Take a look at the all-important 4th and 6th grade standardized test scores…

And this is what Connecticut taxpayers are paying $234,000 plus benefits to get? A man who refuses to follow the law and acquire the credentials he needed to serve as Bridgeport’s superintendent of schools.

Time to send Michael Jordan packing. Off the court, pack it up….the reformy circus is leaving town.

Ken Sheck

You’re confused. As we learned from New York, test scores going down is good. Down is the new up.

Linda174

The kids love learning to take tests and the new tests. Testing 1, 2, 3….

JMC

When the Reformerizers can’t juke the stats with impunity, the truth comes out.

Linda174

Schools under control of Vallas and Malloy look like this:

JMC

Definitely, L!

Charlie Puffers

Finally ran out of ways to cheat. Can’t wait to hear the spin. Will any deformer do the honorable thing and resign?

msavage

On my–not looking so good for Mr. Vallas, is it? Aren’t the individual CMT results a bit late this year? I can’t WAIT to find out whether my children are brilliant or stupid! Pins and needles over here!

Linda174

They needed time to craft their statements, spin the bull$hit, find ways to shine a turd. It’s all a game….to create an illusion of reform. May the house of cards fall…may the edufrauds scurry from the light.

Apartheid First

Pryor found one classroom in one charter school that made gains.. the trouble is, all those kids have been locked in the cubicle-sized room all year taking that test, over and over and over again. Nothing but bread and water and white shirts until you improve, kiddies!

brutus2011

You all should read about Chile’s privatized ‘teach to the test’ education system.

Frightening.

This is us in the future if we don’t band together and fight the power of the “education-industrial complex.”

Bill Morrison

I just found out about and joined the Connecticut Chapter of the BadAss Teachers association. I was surprised to find so many people involved there. It is a way for us all to band together. Check it out.

Apartheid First

When test scores go down, it’s the teacher’s fault. When test scores go up, it’s *Bonus time* for Vallas and Adamowski and Pryor!
Strap on your bubble-sheet “decoding” goggles, kids, we have a test to take!
Actually, I can’t wait for Smarter Balanced tests–the number one choice of Superintendents, CEOs, and Juvenile Detention Head Masters. I am brushing up on my STEM skills so that I can hack those tests to pieces! We’ll just be sending batch after batch of Superior tests from down here in Low-Achievement Land, and when it comes to Glastonbury and Darien–you will be down in the gutter of stupidity! See how you like it, being told endlessly how inadequate and sub-human you are. In fact, if we did one of those wonderful, cruel psychological experiments on children in Westport, where we told them week after week that they were 3 grades below and not making enough yearly progress, I can guarantee that their scores would plummet. Oh, wait, they are doing a cruel psychological experiment on children–only it’s on poor children, as usual.

Sleepless in Bridgeport

If Malloy, Pryor, Adamowski, Finch, and Vallas knew anything about History from the tests they took when they went to school they would know that tar and feathers and rode out of town on a rail might be the nicest way to say don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!

Upper_Middle_Class_Male

I’ve checked the state website for both CMT and CAPT scores for Bridgeport, and the scores are worse than this article suggests. Most grades are down on most of the subsections of both the CMT and CAPT — so much for the non-certified superintendent who declared that he would turn the school system around in a year. If I recall his starting date, he is in his 20th month now.

Apartheid First

Of course they are worse.
And Vallas has been there longer than he said it would take him to turn things around.
The students have no hope and are learning nothing.
The Bridgeport Board of Ed should be ashamed. How much longer is Vallas claiming he needs? Fraud.
Same with Adamowski. Things are worse than ever in Windham, unless you’re a consultant. Or a Special Master blood sucking off the body politic.

Linda174

Read the Vallas bull$hit spin here:

Vallas said he knew scores this year would be unpredictable given the lack of alignment between the curriculum and the test.

“I am confident however, that the higher standards will significantly boost student performance,” said Vallas.

Not even. He’s more like the Ryan leaf. There were occasions where Alex Rodriguez actually came through for his teams. This is not the case with Vallas. How he (and many of these other posers) ever got off the bench is a mystery to me.

Linda174

Check out this …..how much did this cost and what was the point?

HARTFORD — State test scores usually come out in July. This year, they were late, released on August 13. Part of the reason, apparently, was that the 2013 CAPT and CMT assessment data released Tuesday was independently verified by an external auditor at the request of the state Department of Education.

The analysis confirmed and validated the accuracy of 2013 CAPT and CMT student assessment scores.

Why the audit? Well it seems that some mathematical errors were discovered recently in the state’s year-old School Performance Index (SPI).

Introduced last year, the index takes all scores from all students in a school (and district) over a three year period and turns it into an single number. The new system is better, it is argued, because it doesn’t just measure students who manage to clear the goal and proficiency hurdles on tests but also captures progress of other students who are in the less desirable basic or below basic categories, as well as those in the advanced range.

Now we know why Vallas told the principals that failure was not an option. Does he look in the mirror and repeat this mantra every morning?

Truth Seeker

I heard the Commisoner hired a firm to review the previous test scores for the purpose of explaining the drop in this years test scores. I think the hired the Accounting firm of Blum Shapiro for this task. When did education reform turn into this?

R.L.

When was it not this?

Luv2Teach

““I am confident however, that the higher standards will significantly boost student performance,” said Vallas”

What’s this man smoking?? Hasn’t he read the disaster in NYS? how does he think we’ll do better?

Linda174

Vallas and Pyror need to get together and get their reformy talking points straightened out. We’re next for the NY train wreck….get ready for the kids to drop even more. See Pryor’s words of wisdom (he must be having lunch with John King):

“The expectation is that with the more rigorous and more challenging content of the Smarter Balanced exams, scores will initially drop,” said Pryor, who plans to meet with superintendents Wednesday. “The Common Core presents great opportunity for our state because the bar has been raised.”

So we drop this year, we drop next year, we drop the year after that and then by 2020 we start to rise and then it will be time for a new test because he kids have been TRAINED (not educated) to take tests. Since we have to keep the testing industrial complex profiting it will definitely be time for a new test, a new drop, etc…. Wash, rinse and repeat.

And watch the achievement gap get wider and wider and wider.

interested

Jonathon,

Check out Windham’s CMT & CAPT scores. Down in every subject in every grade except for big gains in all 5th grade subjects & less than 1% increase in 7th grade reading. 8th grade math went from 59% to 40% proficient. CAPT math dropped from 41% to 33% & CAPT writing dropped from 60% to 40%.

In fairness, New London did make small but steady gains in most grades & subjects that averaged about a 1.5% increase in math proficiency, no change in reading, and 4% increase in writing.

Apartheid First

1.5% is statistically meaningless, unless it’s in Adamowski’s favor and can get him a bonus and a handshake/new contract from Don Williams, a big ed reformer disguised as a caring public servant.
Adamowski and the Windham BoE will say, thank god we moved the 5th grades back to elementary school! we knew that was why the 5th grade scores were so bad! Now let’s move all the grades back and have K-8 schools, as in Hartford.
What do you mean “in fairness”? Do you really think one year of Adamowski can improve anything (but I won’t deny that he can do tons of damage, in the form of chasing teachers out and throwing a district into utter chaos)? Of course, even 4% is not such a big deal–students who may have been unready for the tests may have been held back, gotten the test waivers, etc. I’m not drinking their kool-aide.

interested

Interesting that the 5th graders were moved. Maybe that actually was a good decision.

The reform crowd is constantly cherry picking and misrepresenting data. I do not wish to do the same. That is why “in fairness” I included Adamowski’s minor gains in New London.

Personally, I think the CMT test is so heavily gamed through test prep that it doesn’t really say all that much about a district. I certainly wouldn’t pay any attention to year to year fluctuations of a few percentage points.

But, if Adamowski & Pryor put so much faith in these tests, they have some explaining to do.

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